It was Sri Lanka President Chandrika Kumaratunga’s turn yesterday to slam body blows at the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam against their wild, unsubstantiated allegations, that Sri Lankan army is harboring the renegade leader Colonel Karuna Amman.

Diplomats from South Asia declared, without any hesitation, that the denunciation on the Government of Sri Lanka and the Sri Lankan Army often made by S.Paramu Thamiselvan resembles to allegations made by a sovereign state on another sovereign state.

A five judge panel of the Supreme Court refused to accept a medical certificate produced by the lawyer of S. B. Dissanayake and severely warned former Minister of Agriculture and United National Party’s National Organizer that the court would proceed without his presence if he ever attempts a similar method when the contempt of court case is taken up before them next time.

When the Centre is busy to start dialogue with the banned United Liberation Front of Asom in a third country, thirty nine militants including four women cadres of both ULFA and Bodo Tigers Force surrendered to major general PS Rana, at a function organized by DAH division at North Lakhimpur recently.

The European Union is unimpressed with Myanmar's promise to let detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi contest future elections, EU Foreign and Security Policy High Representative Javier Solana said on Thursday. Myanmar told a meeting of Southeast Asian foreign ministers on Wednesday that Suu Kyi, under house arrest for the past 13 months in Yangon, would be free to contest elections after a constitutional convention finishes its work.

"The twosome - Prabakaran and Pottuamman were responsible for the killing of Rajiv Gandhi", declared Maran the spokesperson Liberation Tigers Karuna Group. "We condemn Prabakaran and his Group for the killing of Rajiv Gandhi. Law should be allowed to take its course in this killing and we will definitely help in this issue", he emphasized.

Burmese Rohingya (Arakanese) refugees in Kutupalong camp located in the Cox’s Bazar district of Bangladesh called off their 21 day long "Food Strike", after they have received assurance from both UNHCR and the Government of Bangladesh.

Louise Arbour, a Canadian Supreme Court Justice and ex-prosecutor of United Nations war crimes tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, today takes up her duties as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in succession to Sergio Vieira de Mello, who was killed in a terrorist attack in Baghdad last August.